For all intents and purposes, Freddie Gibbs is a West Coast emcee by nature and residence. Thus, I can group him in the sudden onset of a West Coast hip-hop revolution that is peppering the interwebs from every angle. Even more so, there’s a subtle but very clear Gangsta Rap revival spurred by the likes of ScHoolboy Q (see Oxymoron) and Freddie Gibbs with his Madlib-produced Piñata. Of course there are others, but these two have a tight grip on the Gangsta Rap reigns and are injecting the industry with the same hardcore street music that made the West Coast hip-hop scene famous to begin with.
Madlib is not your average hip-hop producer; even labeling him as a hip-hop producer is questionable. Madlib has a very organic sound that stems its roots from improvised jazz, buzzy electronica and off-kilter, gritty underground hip-hop. Slightly teetering tempos and rhythms indicate a very human-like instrumentation, something the arguably over-quantized world of hip-hop rarely sees; and drums that don’t knock you off your feet are an anomaly in what’s generally considered “Gangsta Rap.” Allowing more of the obscure, soul-based samples to usher the song along, Madlib creates a rather smooth and laid back vibe for Gibbs to rhyme over, again, something that listeners would not normally find on an album covering topics like drug dealing, gang violence, and gun references.
Gibbs’ flow is the strongpoint of the emcee’s skill set. Seldom allowing a bar to go partially empty, Gibbs makes a triumphant effort at filling each and every measure with verbiage and vocabulary enough to give all of the meaning to the listener. While at times the delivery can be neutral (in regards to emotional expression), it’s what the Indiana-born rapper says that remarks what is one of the most crucial records of 2014 thus far.
By crucial it is meant that Piñata ignores the post-modern mantra of “creativity” and being “different.” Gibbs just raps – at its core, Piñata is a unfiltered rap record showing all of the ugly scars bore by the young emcee through years in his hometown of Gary, Indiana as well as his residence of California. The whole picture of Piñata keeps it simple while pairing a producer and rapper the informed hip-hop listener would never imagine joining forces. But it works; Madlib and Gibbs possess a peculiar chemistry that sits well, despite the “softer” beats supporting Gibbs’ “harder” topics.
Throughout the record, we hear less than a few different subject matters, and rarely any nuances in delivery or production. The whole album rides straight through pretty well, but with little change and that may be a lack of diversification, but it can also be seen as clean cut consistency. I’d lean towards the latter for reasons more or less than the fact that the delivery and production are just plain solid (ergo little deviation from the form is desired). But as far as the subject matters, Freddie Gibbs bears no front. Many, many tracks detail Gibbs resort to drug dealing, which is revealed on “Broken” to be a scapegoat from the shame he felt in the eyes of his father. Other tracks push fake fronts to the side, dissing other emcees (both named [see “Thuggin'”] and unnamed [see “Shitsville”]) for reporting facades that are really just that.
All in all, Piñata gets it right; Piñata mixes the essence of Gibbs’ Gangster rapping (brutal honesty detailing gang violence, street life, etc.) with the abstract, although none too unfamiliar instrumentals of Madlib. The various features don’t do too much more than fill up more time, some could have even been left off (namely Ab-Soul‘s verse on “Lakers” and some of the miscellaneous emcees on the stretched-out eponymous closing track). A little bit of variation here and there might have spiced up the record a bit in all honesty. Nonetheless, it’s the two stars of the show that shine in the limelight and add to the 2014 West Coast hip-hop renaissance with alternative production and cold, cold bars.
9/10
Download Piñata via Amazon
Tracklisting:
1) Supplier
2) Scarface
3) Deeper
4) High (feat. Danny Brown)
5) Harold’s
6) Bomb (feat. Raekwon)
7) Shitsville
8) Thuggin’
9) Real
10) Uno
11) Robes (feat. Domo Genesis & Earl Sweatshirt)
12) Broken (feat. Scarface)
13) Lakers (feat. Ab-Soul & Polyester the Saint)
14) Knicks
15) Shame (feat. BJ The Chicago Kid)
16) Watts (feat. Big Time Watts)
17) Piñata (feat. Domo Genesis, G-Wiz, Casey Veggies, Sulaiman, Meechy Darko & Mac Miller)
